Muthayya: Debutant Bhaskhar Maurya’s Telugu film bags Best Indian Film Award at Kolkata International Film Fest

Telugu indie film Muthayya, starring Sudhakar Reddy, Arun Raj, is continuing its golden run in the festival circuit. After making a splash at several international festivals, the film won top honours at the 28th Kolkata International Film Festival. Muthayya won the The Hiralal Sen Memorial Award for ‘Best Feature Film’ in the ‘Competition On the Indian Language Films’ category. Written and directed by Bhaskhar Maurya, the film revolves around the tale of a late-bloomer and his dream to act.

The rural comedy is jointly bankrolled by Kedar Selgamsetty and Vamsi Karumanchi under Hylife Entertainments and Vrinda Prasad under Fictionary Entertainment. Former journalist Hemanth Kumar is its creative producer. Mounika Bomma, Purna Chandra, T Sai Leela, Jayavardhan Sagar (Bunny), Kiran Kumar and others played important roles in the film as well. The critically acclaimed film recently premiered and won big at the Indic Film Utsav 2022, organised virtually.

Expressing their happiness about the win at KIFF, producers Kedar Selagamsetty and Vamsi Karumanchi said they were proud of this milestone at a prestigious film festival and hoped that the film would inspire and bring joy to many more viewers in the future. Vrinda Prasad shared her enthusiasm about representing Telugu film industry at KIFF in 2022. The film premiered to a packed audience at the festival and captured the imagination of its viewers.

Vrinda thanked the other producers Kedar and Vamsi of Hylife Entertainments for their support, and the efforts of director Bhaskhar Maurya and cinematographer Divakar Mani in addition to the cast and crew. While making Muthayya was a dream for the director Bhaskhar Maurya, the terrific run in film fests has come as a pleasant surprise for him. The recognition is a big boost and has instilled a great amount of self-belief in me and I hope this film continues to surprise us, the filmmaker mentioned.

Muthayya had its Indian premiere at the 28th Kolkata International Film Festival, organised by West Bengal Film Centre under the West Bengal Government, in which nearly 190 films from 42 countries were screened. Some of the other fests where Muthayya made a mark include UK Asian Film Festival, META Film Fest, South Asian Film Festival of Montreal, Ischia Global Fest, India Film Festival of Alberta, Third Action Film Festival, and Cinemaking International Film Festival.

The film bagged the Best Feature Film Jury Award at the Indic Film Utsav, and Best Debut Director Award at META Film Festival, Dubai. With music by Karthik Rodriguez, the film was edited by Sai Murali.

Read the review of Muthayya here.